Vodafone New Zealand has launched a new "dollar-a-day" mobile broadband service, but the carrier's Australian office has told users not to hold their breath for a similar deal here.
Vodafone NZ announced the NZ$1-a-day mobile data service yesterday, allowing users a 10MB daily limit under the prepaid offer, available later this month.
The telco said the 10MB limit will be "more than enough for casual users", with those exceeding the limit charged at NZ$1 per extra megabyte.
Vodafone NZ's general manager of products and services, Kursten Shalfoon, said in a statement that the move had been prompted by a recent network expansion and the fact that "handsets are evolving rapidly".
However, a spokesperson for Vodafone Australia told ZDNet.com.au today that it would be "staying firm" with its current pricing strategy, and had no plans at this stage to follow New Zealand's lead into discount mobile data services.
"Each Vodafone office worldwide has its own pricing structure autonomy ... I don't believe there's any plans to change the structure of [Australia's] price, which is proving to be very popular with users," said the spokesperson.
"This is a new model of pricing that I've not yet seen," said Joe Sweeney, strategy and marketing analyst at research firm IBRS. "There are similar packages here but they're structured slightly differently ... certain packages allow you to buy chucks of bandwidth and use it as you go."
However, Sweeney believes that when averaging out costs over a typical month "it comes to about the same amount" as many fixed monthly contracts, and would only make a difference for business users who consume less data when "out on the road".
"If you're out on the road and just keeping an eye on all your email headings, you might do 5MB a day ... but it really comes down to how [Vodafone] can put together data packages so that people are paying as little as possible but still paying for more than they actually need," he said.
The announcement comes after industry watchers predicted last week that the Australian launch of Apple's 3G iPhone would trigger a mobile data price war.
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xBeanie
18/06/2008 12:25 PM
If 10MB a day is "more than enough" then you dont need broadband. What planet are these guys on? My partner has an internet business and in theory can work from anywhere. However the reality is that she is tied to her desk because casual rates of over $1 per MB are just too expensive. The only telco with decent pricing is 3 but unfortunately their coverage problems particularly at our house, 7 kms from the CBD, make using them infeasible.
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kc
18/06/2008 12:45 PM
10MB lol funny stuff!
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rtsclement
23/06/2008 03:57 PM
This just reinforces my opinion that Vodafone are clueless about data and that 3 should got the deal. Guess I will just have to wait until my Vodafone contract expires to switch and get an iPhone.
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Blarty
01/07/2008 08:21 PM
For $29/month you can get 2Gb/month from '3'. Which is marginally less than $1/day (except in Feb) and quite a bit more than 10Mb/day!
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